nacre
IPA: neɪkɝ
noun
- (obsolete) A shellfish which contains mother-of-pearl.
- A pearly substance made mainly of stacked layers of aragonite and organic matter which lines the interior of many shells; mother-of-pearl.
Examples of "nacre" in Sentences
- The animal then secretes a calcium substance called nacre to protect itself.
- The particle is an irritant, which causes the oyster to produce a lacquer-like substance called nacre.
- The inside shells of oysters and other shell-forming mollusks are covered with a shiny, lustrous substance called nacre, or mother-of-pearl.
- Natural pearls are born quite by chance when the oyster can’t get rid of some particle inside and coats it with layer upon layer of a smooth, hard substance called nacre.
- Three decades earlier, Kokichi Mikimoto, the son of a noodle maker in Toba, Japan, had perfected a method to culture pearls, the process by which a bead or piece of mantle tissue is implanted inside the fleshy part of a mollusk, forcing the creature to secrete an iridescent substance called nacre that forms a pearl.